


something wholesome, something sweet

by neptunian



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Wholesome(tm), just soft teenagers in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 10:11:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20813417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neptunian/pseuds/neptunian
Summary: Yamaguchi smiles, kisses his nose and breathes out a "What the birthday boy wants, he gets" before Kei gets accidentally tackled on his carpeted floor and his face full of butterfly kisses courtesy of his boyfriend.





	something wholesome, something sweet

Tsukishima Kei is a light sleeper.

He's known this since he was six, thanks to his first ever nightmare he now vaguely remembers involving outstretched willow trees and their arm-like branches spreading, trying to grab his ankles and aim to yank his face flat on the ground. Typical, maybe, but the shadows of trees cast on his wooden cabinet and walls courtesy of the moonlight made Kei tug the ends of his blanket towards his chin as he lets his mind run wild like the soft, blaring lights from his glow-in-the-dark stickers on his ceiling. It was a birthday gift, and it accompanied him and his thoughts until his eyelids gave out and fall shut a little past one-thirty in the morning, the tight grip on his blanket a little looser. He's extra careful about sounds too, even waking up to the quietest tiptoe his brother Akiteru once made when he wanted to surprise Kei for his eighth birthday.

So yes, he's a light sleeper, which provided no explanation as to why he didn't notice Yamaguchi Tadashi sneak in a strawberry shortcake slice without him waking up.

He stirs awake before realizing his painful position; hunched over the study table, left side of his face pressed towards his long-forgotten mathematics answer sheet.  _ Thank God I didn't drool, _ he loosely thinks as he yawns and straightens his back, trying to blink away the last remnants of his nap before seeing the cake served on a ceramic plate. There's a fork right beside the plate, the head wrapped in tissue paper. Kei grabs his glasses—accidentally knocks his pencil, causing it to off the table but he made no attempt to pick it back up—and blinks owlishly the moment he wears them, like that will make the cake disappear or provide him answers. Both didn't magically happen, so he shifts his eyes at his companion who's brows are furrowed in concentration as he reads a passage in English. He wears an equally questioning and confused look and stares long enough for the other to finally look at him.

"Napped well?" Yamaguchi Tadashi's voice is soft like his smile right now, like he wasn't a hair length away to crumpling a page of his English book just seconds ago. "I know you asked me to wake you up in ten minutes, but you looked so peaceful... so I didn't." He lightly laughs, and it takes all of Kei's will as of the moment to not stare at him with probably a dumb look on his face and heart-shaped pupils.

The blond shrugs and scratches the back of his neck. He makes sure to avert his eyes back to the cake before asking, "Cake?"

"Happy birthday!" Of course Kei knows it's his birthday. The whole team has made a fuss about it with their loud party poopers and tacky, colorful banners that almost made him faint out of secondhand embarrassment. Hinata has made sure he ate three cakes with different flavors, Kageyama has offered to carry his bag and buy him drinks from the vending machine because  _ It's your birthday... You deserve nice things once in a while, ugly _ , and Yachi… well, like the decent person that she is, gave him a handmade birthday card with a drawing of him in front and sweet wishes on the back. All of his acquaintances, from Karasuno and not alike (he briefly remembers to respond to all the birthday messages and he groans in his head), has made sure to drill it in his head that he's a year older even if it was unnecessary.

"You've wished me that the entire day…" he trailed off, partially because he's still not fully awake but also because he doesn't want to sound ungrateful. "Thank you." He says it for what seems to be the thousandth time today, and Yamaguchi just laughs out loud because he knows. "There can never be too many greetings, Tsukki!" He quips.

Kei sighed in defeat. He picks up the fork, unwraps the tissue and takes a bite out of his cake. Yamaguchi's staring at him, like a puppy waiting to be fed. The longer he stares, the more Kei feels his cheeks burn, so he coughs and mumbles. "What now…?"

"Nothing." The other responds as Kei chews on the cake. The icing melts easily in his mouth, and he hums, barely audible, at how soft the dessert is. Yamaguchi smiles at him, and looks back on his book after three heartbeats longer than the usual time he stares at him sometimes (Kei would know; he's observant and very much in love with his best friend. He also does the same thing, with the staring at the other and all that.)

He chews and swallows slowly, marvels at Yamaguchi's fingers running between the line spaces of the sentences. There's a few stops here and there when he meets unfamiliar words, and Kei delights in his thick accent and slurs. He sets the fork on the plate momentarily to grab the almost forgotten pencil that rolled near his feet, taps Yamaguchi's shoulder lightly and offers him said stationary when the latter tilts his head back a little bit. "Trace the words with this. It's easier." He offers and shrugs after hearing his companion's soft yet sweet  _ Thank you, Tsukki. _

"You know," Kei starts after a few minutes of comfortable almost-silence, the occasional sound of the fork meeting the ceramic plate and Yamaguchi's murmurs the only noise accompanying them. "Why didn't you tell the dumbass duo my favorite cake flavor?"

The pencil stops and never leaves the page, but Yamaguchi's eyes do otherwise. He looks up at Kei's eyes, big yet teasing, and there's a little amused blush on his cheeks. (Yamaguchi sometimes stops in his tracks, and tugs Kei's hand as he stares up at the sky when it turns pink like cotton candy. Kei thinks about Yamaguchi's possible reaction when he tells him his cheeks right now emit the same color as that.) "It was more fun letting them guess." A little snort and chuckle escaped his lips before he glues his eyes on the page, but not yet continuing his reading.

"You could've saved me the trouble of eating all those cakes." If Yamaguchi didn't know, he wouldn't have heard the pout in his best friend's voice.

"I know."

"How awful of you, Tadashi."

"I know." When he laughs out loud, Kei does a little snort and chuckle of his own too, biting the edges of his fork with an endeared look on his eyes hopefully drowning out the sleepiness. "You rubbed off on me too well."

Kei hums, sets his fork down onto the plate again once he's done, and smirks. "Have I?"

"Yeah." Their eyes meet again, for probably the fiftieth time today, and probably the thousandth time since he realized he liked his best friend differently and too much. Kei allows himself to smile a little bit, and when Yamaguchi mirrors it, he leans forward and kisses his best friend—and boyfriend.  _ his boyfriend _ —on the cheek. "Thank you," he whispers. "I don't think I can tell you that enough." His tough and cold facade is down, and he allows Yamaguchi to see all the emotions running inside his head and hopefully reflecting in his eyes, allows him to see the growing blush on his cheeks up close, allows him to drop everything from his hand to cup Kei's cheeks, and allows Yamaguchi to kiss him on the lips. When they pull away, their noses are only an inch apart.

"Gonna spend more birthdays with you, Tsukki." Yamaguchi's breathless, yet smiles so wide and bright. "Will you let me?"

Kei leans back this time, afraid he's gonna get dizzy due to their proximity and the warmth slowly and steadily blooming in his chest and in the pit of his stomach. "That's the plan, yeah." He doesn't outright say that it's his birthday wish, but Yamaguchi knows what he means, because he always does.

"Well, plans would suck if it didn't happen…" Yamaguchi trails off. He grabs the pencil that he dropped earlier pre-kissing session and tapped his chin with it, pretending to think like he's solving a quadratic equation. Kei rolls his eyes, but not without fondness. "Guess it's up to me to be your guardian angel and grant your wish!"

"Thank you." This time Kei says it sarcastically, so they laugh again like silly teenagers sharing secrets they wouldn't ever tell anyone—or maybe they  _ are _ . Nothing special is happening, but little moments like this are tucked in the corners of Kei's heart anyway, and he wouldn't want it any other way.

The blond yawns as he straightens his back, and there's an endearing look on Yamaguchi's face that he barely misses. "I'm still tired."

"I can go home, if you want?"

"Sleepover." Kei briefly and hastily says. "Please… stay over." He manages to say after his second yawn as he pushes his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

Yamaguchi smiles, kisses his nose and breathes out a  _ What the birthday boy wants, he gets  _ before Kei gets accidentally tackled on his carpeted floor and his face full of butterfly kisses courtesy of his boyfriend.

**Author's Note:**

> belated happy birthday to haikyuu's blond, spindly, Mr. Grinch aka tsukki!!!
> 
> say hi to me on twitter @kouminato! :D


End file.
